Direct TV is one of the leading cable and satellite TV industry service providers in the United States with more than twenty million customers across the country. This is a common concern among customers, and they tend to ask whether Direct TV has a policy that addresses loyalty to its customers. Below is a summary of the current policies that DirectTV has in place regarding its customer loyalty program and rewards for customer retention.
DirectTV has been known not to have a loyalty program; however, it has a rewards program for its loyal customers.
The short answer is no -there is no direct TV loyalty program or something similar for those subscribers who have been using DirectTV for quite a while. While some of the other cable/satellite companies have and many other consumer services that have rewards, coupons, or bonuses for customers who have patronized their services for several years DirectTV lacks such policies.
However, this does not mean that there are no incentives or methods that DirectTV can adopt to enable its consumers to save money because of their loyalty. There are a few lifetime discounts which can be given by the people who are using it for a longer time and even these seem to be quite beneficial in the long term. However, DirectTV lacks a formal loyalty program, which awards users progressively more benefits as they remain with the company for longer periods.
Strategies for DirectTV Loyal Customers to Cut Cost
While there’s no formal rewards program, DirectTV does occasionally offer certain promotions and incentives tailored towards existing subscribers: While there’s no formal rewards program, DirectTV does occasionally offer certain promotions and incentives tailored toward existing subscribers:
- Special Discounts – At other times, DirectTV aims to offer special discounts or gifts to customers in their first or second year of membership. These are not common loyalty price cuts, but they are promotional offers and can be made occasionally.
- Service Upgrades – Every once in a while, a regular customer can be given a special offer on the upgrading of the service which may include extra Services, such as the addition of other premium channels, upgrading the DVR service, installation of HD options, and so on. Most upgrades often come with a new contract; it means that one has to sign a new contract to get the upgrade.
- Referral rewards – Direct TV offers its customers a golden opportunity to earn one hundred dollars for each new customer they bring on board. There is no limit: that means that loyal customers who have subscribed to your newsletter for many years and who send new subscribers from time to time will accumulate a lot of credits.
The only way for any DirectTV customer to truly save money month-to-month and yearly is to dial the company’s customer service once a year to redo the contract after the contract expires and tell them you are canceling the service if they do not give better rates or better offers. This involves some level of bargaining, but it is usually followed by offers such as discounted prices, being given credit, lower rates or even being offered free additional channels for a certain amount of time or upgrading without charging to cut costs.
Why DirectTV Does Not Offer a Formal Loyalty Program
Due to the competitive environment in pay TV, many have wondered why DirectTV, a market giant, has failed to implement standardized loyalty, tenure, or rewards policies as are available in other subscription services. There are a few potential reasons: There are a few potential reasons:
- First Mover Disadvantage – As one of the pioneers of satellite services in the United States, DirectTV benefited from a first mover as well as a scale advantage for many years, so it did not need to rely on expensive customer loyalty programs for the same time.
- High Customer Acquisition Cost – In the already-saturated market, DirectTV has to spend a lot to acquire new customers, and it has been estimated that the cost per acquisition ranges between $600 and $800 per new subscriber, including the cost of advertising, hardware subsidies, installation, commissions, and others. This means that they are more likely to place their attention on marketing offers that attract new subscribers rather than those that encourage continued usage by customers.
- Increasing Cost of Content – The cost that DirectTV incurs for acquiring the content to broadcast SOARS tremendously, year in and year out, negatively affecting the Company’s margins. This makes it challenging to introduce new discount rates or loyalty incentives yet sustain financial objectives.
- This paper hypothesizes that during the period of active mergers and acquisitions, major corporate restructuring derailed the implementation of customer loyalty programs as follows: Merger Distraction – DirectTV merged with AT&T in 2015, and going through significant corporate restructuring, was unlikely to develop elaborate customer loyalty programs at the same time.
One of the few potential weaknesses that can be highlighted by the absence of a well-developed loyalty program is that some DirectTV customers who have been around for a longer time may sometimes feel like they are not valued enough. Without such campaigns for regular users, they can get the impression that only new users get to benefit from the good offers while they, the old users, continue to get their rates hiked.
As a form of generalizing the laundry list of product features, DirectTV should develop a means through which customers can request customized offers.
Most of the loyalty or tenure discounts are offered by DirectTV account reps which are usually offered at their discretion but, at the DirectTV customer service line, it can be useful to dial 1-800-DIRECTV and politely inquire whether they have any offers, discounts, upgrades, or promotions for loyal customers. Also, make sure to carry with your other account information and let them know how long you have been a subscriber and that you are contemplating changing your provider. This may reveal some relevant offers meant to retain your patronage that may not be marketed regularly to the public.
The Bottom Line
As mentioned previously, DirectTV does not have a standing loyalty-based reward system for loyal long-term subscribing customers unlike most major cable companies and many popular customer subscription services in the current market. However, there are sometimes tenure-based upgrade price cuts; customer-specific campaigns; referral bonuses; and bargaining strategies that act in aggregate as the de facto loyalty enticements – even though there is no clearly stated, long-term subscription plan.
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